The Week that Was: MLS Week Four

Show of hands: who had Montreal with 12 points through its first four matches? Tres impressionnant, mes amis. Week Four of the 2013 Major League Soccer season was full of storylines, including but not limited to: the Impact just keeps getting it done, Columbus picks up an impressive road win at RFK Stadium, the Houston Dynamo manages to defend its home turf despite facing an uphill battle headed into halftime, and Chicago is really, really struggling (or maybe Chivas USA is actually quite good).

RESULTS AND STATISTICSMajor League Soccer (Home Clubs on Left)D.C. United (Rafael 22’) 1-2 Columbus Crew (Williams 15’, Speas 58’)
D.C. United denied 300th win in all competitions against rival Columbus. Just Columbus’ seventh win in 28 attempts at RFK Stadium. Columbus becomes the first club to win at RFK in 18 matches.

New England Revolution 0-0 Sporting Kansas City
New England improves its home W-D-L record against Sporting Kansas City to 7-6-11. Revolution tied with Los Angeles Galaxy for best defense in the league (one goal allowed through three matches).

Montreal Impact (Di Vaio 14’) 1-0 New York Red Bulls
Montreal evens all-time series with New York at 2-2. Impact is scoring one goal every 60 minutes in 2013 while allowing one just every 180 minutes.

FC Dallas (Castillo 70’, Jackson 81’) 2-0 Real Salt Lake
Real Salt Lake’s 299th match in all competitions. RSL has posted a W-D-L record of 106-76-117 during this time. This was also RSL’s 100th loss (90-66-100) in MLS regular-season play.

ATTENDANCE
Some pretty cringe-worthy attendance figures were reported during the fourth week of the season. San Jose recorded the lone sellout of the week in its 1-0 win over visiting Seattle while six MLS clubs playing in their normal home stadiums recorded capacities at or below 75 percent. (Montreal was the lone exception, as it played its match against New York within Olympic Stadium.)

The Impact recorded the largest attendance figure of the week (26,259) while FC Dallas (11,181) D.C. United (11,034) , and Chicago (9,723) played in front of crowds smaller than 12,000.

The eight matches of the week featured a total attendance figure of 117,301, generating an average crowd of 14,663 fans per match. Through the 34 league matches of the 2013 season, 626,765 fans have made their way to MLS stadiums for an average crowd of 18,434 per match.